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Last year, we bought you a blog piece on the Hövding airbag collar, a collar which deploys an airbag in the form of a hood if its in-built sensors detect a potential head impact. Now comes the news that Dutch scientists are starting the development of an airbag system for the outside of cars that may help protect cyclists if a collision occurred.
Dutch research institute TNO is setting up a Sensor Field Test as a first step to making this possible. For one year, five service cars of Dutch telecom company KPN will be fitted with a sensor on a car bumper that aims to detect whether cyclists or pedestrians are close.
The special sensor equipment will comprise of small cameras, computers and sensitive monitoring devices to ascertain whether objects close to the car are indeed cyclists, pedestrians or something else.
The KPN service cars, which are being deployed in Den Hagg and Utrecht, will be subjected to numerous trials to further develop and test the sensor system. In addition there will be experiments to find out whether the system operates in all weather conditions: for instance daylight, darkness, rain and fog.
The sensor system may also be used for other active safety applications, for instance automatic braking to protect cyclists and pedestrians.
Before developing an actual airbag, TNO said it needed to ensure that the airbag only deploys in case of an actual collision with a cyclist or pedestrian and the sensor tests were seen as vital to next stage development of an actual airbag.
According to TNO, research, conducted on behalf of the Netherlands Department of Transport, Public Works and Water Management and Fietsersbond (Dutch Cycling Union), found that an airbag on the windscreen of a car was the best option for the protection of pedestrians or cyclists in a collision. TNO is hopeful of developing an airbag that covers the entire windscreen, part of the front door window and part of the car roof eventually.
TNO is working in close cooperation with airbag manufacturer Autoliv in Sweden, the Centraal Beheer Achmea insurance company and Fietsersbond on the airbag project.
from Going Going Bike - Auctions, Bike News, Cycle Stuff
Cheers for that. A mistake on my part
is a comment made by James - Going Going Bike in the blog post called
That is quite something.
Adds an edge to the daily commute.
is a comment made by Steve in the blog post called
Neat idea.
Cycling in a group always feels safer.
It can be lonely on those l
is a comment made by Steve in the blog post called
Well said Roxy.
And well done Goinggoingbike for allowing the comments of the a
is a comment made by Steve in the blog post called
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